Tuesday, December 31, 2013

The Surge in Iraq created a huge controversy in American
politics when it started in 2007. There were arguments about whether the U.S.
should send in more troops or withdraw its forces to solve Iraq’s increasing
chaos. Since then there has been a lively discussion about how much of a factor
the Surge was in combination with other events such as the sectarian cleansing
of Baghdad, the Anbar Awakening, the Sons of Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr’s cease
fire, and more in reducing the violence in the country. To provide an inside
view of the Surge is Professor Peter Mansoor the General Raymond E. Mason Jr.
Chair of Military History at Ohio State University and General David Petraeus’
former Executive Officer from 2007-2008. He recently published a book about his
experience during that time entitled Surge,
My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War.

1. The Surge was
proposed out of a sense of desperation in Washington about the situation in
Iraq. In 2005 sectarian fighting had broken out, but after the February 2006
bombing of the Samarra shrine things quickly descended into a full-scale civil
war. President Bush heard several proposals about what to do and decided upon
the Surge. He said he was “doubling down” and not only changed the military
approach but his own handling of Iraq. Can you explain how the president dealt
with Iraq before 2007 and its consequences?

President Bush believed that his subordinate commanders
should be given wide leeway to prosecute the war as they saw fit. In my view,
he believed this was a proper reading of the lessons of the Vietnam, a conflict
in which President Lyndon B. Johnson was accused of running the war from the
White House. Bush erred in the other direction by supporting his commanders
with inadequate supervision from above and nearly suffered defeat in Iraq as a
result. The civilian and military leaders in Baghdad developed a strategy and
operational concept—focused on killing and capturing terrorist and insurgent
operatives while transitioning security responsibilities to the nascent Iraqi
security forces as quickly as possible—that allowed the insurgents and al-Qaeda
in Iraq (AQI) to embed themselves among the Iraqi people, while creating a
security vacuum that nearly caused Iraq to break apart in 2006. By mid-2006,
President Bush sensed that something was wrong and he sought a way to reverse the
downward spiral in violence. The result was the Surge.

2. On the ground in
Iraq General George Casey ordered Operation Together Forward in 2006 try to
secure Baghdad. How was the plan executed and what were its faults?

There were two iterations of Operation Together Forward,
which were cordon and search operations in the heart of Baghdad intended to
clear the city of insurgents. In these two large scale operations a significant
number of buildings were searched, weapons caches confiscated, and suspects
detained. The problem was that once complete, there were not enough forces left
behind to secure the areas ostensibly cleared of insurgents. In time the
insurgents and terrorists returned, and the security situation continued its
downward spiral.

3. Around that same
time you were called to the Pentagon to join the Council of Colonels, which was
originally organized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss the War on Terror,
but eventually came to focus upon the Iraq War. What did that group come to see
as the main problems in Iraq, and what were its recommendations to solve it?

“We are losing because we are not winning, and time is not
on our side,” is how the Council of Colonels announced to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff that the United States and its allies were losing the Iraq War. This was
a revelation and a shock to them. The main problem in Iraq that we saw was an
ethno-sectarian competition for power and resources, exacerbated by the
intervention of outside powers such as Iran and the injection of jihadists into
the conflict. In our view, the United States had three options: Go Big
(mobilize its military power to overwhelm the insurgency), Go Long (configure
its support to Iraq to prevail over the long haul), or Go Home (withdraw from
Iraq and manage the consequences). President Bush chose a combination of Go Big
and Go Long, resulting in the Surge.

(AP)

4. The Iraq Study
Group suggested that the U.S. gradually withdraw its forces while reaching out
to Iraq’s neighbors as the best way to stabilize things in the country. Why did
you disagree with that approach?

Iraq’s neighbors were part of the problem. As long as states
such as Iran thought that they could achieve their aims in Iraq through proxy
warfare, negotiations with them were a dead end. We proved this during the Surge
when the United States and Iran held three negotiations in Baghdad (Ambassador
Ryan Crocker was the U.S. representative) that went nowhere. Furthermore,
outside powers could not solve the fundamental issues inside Iraq, which were
ethno-sectarian in nature and required a resolution from within.

5. Retired General
Jack Keane and the American Enterprise Institute argued for an alternative
strategy of a population centered counterinsurgency campaign. Why do you think
that approach won over President Bush?

President Bush wanted to win the war in Iraq. Not lose. Not
tie. Not exit the conflict gracefully. I don’t think General George Casey,
General John Abizaid, or the Joint Chiefs ever understood the determination of
the president in this regard. As the situation in Iraq worsened, President Bush
understood that something had to change, but as he pressed his commanders for
solutions, the same stock answers came back. Stay the course. Transfer security
responsibilities to the Iraqis. The strategy is working, but will take more
time. As 2006 progressed, the president realized something had to change. The
surge seemed the only viable alternative strategy, and he adopted it as his
own.

6. Even before the
Surge started in December 2006 a raid upon an Al Qaeda safe house discovered a
treasure trove of documents about the group’s strategy for Baghdad. What did
those papers reveal about the organization, and what kinds of plans were made
to counter it when the Surge began?

The raid revealed the importance of the “Baghdad Belts,” or
the regions around Baghdad that were in effect insurgent and terrorist
sanctuaries. From these regions the insurgents and terrorists could inject
violence into the capital city at will. As the document made clear, to control
Baghdad, we had to control the Baghdad Belts. As a result, more than fifty
percent of the extra combat power provided by the surge ended up being deployed
outside Baghdad in al-Anbar Province and the Baghdad Belts.

7. Many have tried to
simplify the Surge down to a troop increase, counterinsurgency tactics, and a
dynamic leader in General Petraeus. In fact the new strategy was made up of
many different elements. Can you go through what those were and how they worked
together?

General Petraeus has done a wonderful job of describing the
new strategy in his Foreword to my book, adapted as an article in Foreign Policy, which can be accessed at
here.
The surge was a holistic strategy to change the war in Iraq. It featured a new
(or at least, one evenly applied across the force) operational concept that
stressed the overriding need to protect the Iraqi people from insurgent,
militia, and terrorist violence. More forces were needed to realize this goal.
Gen. Petraeus also realized that to contain the violence in Iraq, the
reconcilable elements of the insurgent and militia opposition (including
detainees in coalition custody) needed to be brought into support of the Iraqi
government, so outreach to these groups was part of the strategy—bringing the
Awakening into play and resulting in the creation of the Sons of Iraq. Targeted
strikes to kill or capture irreconcilables were also part of the surge—to
eliminate from the equation those who refused to be part of the solution to the
conflict. To give the Iraqi people hope for the future, nation building aspects
to improve the economy, provide jobs, and deliver essential services were also
stressed. If strategy is defined as the provision of ways and means to secure
an end, then the Surge was most definitely a new strategy.

PM Maliki was fine with the Awakening as long as it stayed in Anbar but when the US started the Sons of Iraq program he was opposed (AP)

8. After General
Petraeus found out about the Awakening in Anbar, he decided to try to replicate
it throughout the country with the Sons of Iraq (SOI). He was hoping that this
would lead to local reconciliation and eventually be connected to the central
government. A major barrier to that was Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. What
were some of the struggles Coalition officials went through trying to convince
Maliki of the advocacy of the SOI, and did he ever seem to fully accept the
program?

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki welcomed the Awakening as
long as it was confined to al-Anbar Province, a region of little concern to his
government and the Shi’a constituency which he represented. When the Awakening
and its offspring, the Sons of Iraq, approached areas of greater concern to
Shi’a Iraqis, such as Diyala Province or Baghdad, then Prime Minister Maliki
and his administration were reluctant to embrace the movement. Gen. Petraeus
attempted to assuage Prime Minister Maliki’s concerns by pointing out that it
was better to have former insurgents inside the tent, as opposed to outside the
tent trying to tear it down. Furthermore, we could gather biometric
identification (fingerprints, retina scans) of the Sons of Iraq, along with
their personal information, which would make them vulnerable to reprisals
should they backslide. Gen. Petraeus also realized that whoever paid the SOI
would have control over them. Initially, the paymaster was Multi-National
Force-Iraq, but later it was the Iraqi government. This gave Maliki great
control over the Sons of Iraq. Despite these certainties, he never warmed to
the program, although he is probably now regretting his decision not to do so.

9. One reason that
Sunnis seemed willing to join the Sons of Iraq was that they realized that they
were losing the civil war. You quoted one U.S. Army Colonel that worked on
reconciliation that said, “The Sunnis recognize that they’ve lost, and they’re
coming to the table.” The Anbar Awakening also expanded at this time from its
start in Ramadi to across the province. Moqtada al-Sadr announced a cease-fire
in the middle of 2007, and Premier Maliki eventually went after his militia
with the 2008 Charge of the Knights campaign in Basra, Maysan, and Baghdad.
This has created a debate within the United States over whether the Surge was
the main catalyst for security improving in Iraq or whether it was a
combination of the Surge and those other developments in Iraq. What are your
thoughts on the matter?

The Surge was the catalyst that brought to fruition a number
of factors that influenced the outcome of the war in Iraq. Without the Surge,
the Awakening would have remained a local movement confined to Ramadi or, at
most, al-Anbar Province. Without the improved security conditions in Baghdad
created by the Surge, Muqtada al-Sadr would never have offered a cease-fire
after the gun battle between his militia and the shrine guards in Karbala in
August 2007. Without the Surge, Prime
Minister Maliki would not have felt emboldened to confront the Jaish al-Mahdi
in Basra, Sadr City, and Maysan Province. On the other hand, the Surge would not
have had the same results had it been attempted earlier in the war. It needed
the other elements at play in Iraq in 2007 to succeed.

10. President Bush
went from delegating Iraq policy to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and the
Pentagon from 2003-2006 to being hands on during the Surge. Why did you believe
this was the proper approach for all presidents to take when it comes to
conducting a war?

In his book Supreme
Command, Eliot Cohen analyzes the war leadership of Abraham Lincoln,
Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion, and concludes that
hands-on executive leadership is required to ensure success in war. President
Bush read Cohen’s book early in his presidency, but didn’t internalize its
lessons regarding what kind of leadership was required in difficult endeavors.
For the first six years of his presidency, President Bush empowered his key
subordinates to wage the war in Iraq without a lot of supervision from the
White House. Finally in 2006, Bush realized that he needed to take a hands-on
approach to fashioning a strategy to win the war. The resulting concept, the Surge,
would not have succeeded without his involvement and support. This example,
along with many others, shows the need for presidents to be intimately involved
in the details of the strategy for waging war.

11. From late-2007 into
2008 Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) started concentrating more and more on
Shiite militias and Special Groups that were run by the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards’ Qods Force commander General Sulaiman. There have been many stories
about these operations and some of the interactions between Sulaiman and
General Petraeus. Can you speak about what MNF-I’s strategy was to counter the
Iranians and whether it was effective or not?

MNF-I realized that Iranian support of Jaish al-Mahdi
Special Groups was a destabilizing factor in Iraq. Part of Gen. Petraeus’ Surge
concept was the even-handed treatment of Sunni insurgents and Shi’a militia
operatives. Petraeus pushed very hard to ensure the targeting of extremists of
all sects, with excellent results. After the capture of a number of Iranian
Qods Force operatives in Iraq, Iran withdrew most of its personnel from the
country and moved the training of proxy forces back to Iran. Although MNF-I was
able to reduce the effectiveness of Iranian backed operatives, it could not
eliminate Iranian influence on the war in Iraq.

12. Throughout the
entire Surge there was great skepticism about its effectiveness. That was seen
when General Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had to testify
before the American Congress. Less well known was the fact that sectors of the
military such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Admiral William Fallon who was
commander of the Central Command at that time were opposed to the new strategy
as well. What were their concerns, and how did they attempt to affect policy?

The Joint Chiefs of Staff were concerned that the provision
of the Surge forces to Iraq would cause deterioration in the readiness of U.S.
ground forces due to the excessive strain put on the Army and Marine Corps by
the Iraq War. President Bush gave an excellent reply to these concerns in his
meeting with the Joint Chiefs in the Tank in the Pentagon in December 2006 by
pointing out that the worst thing that could happen to the U.S. military would
be to lose the war in Iraq. All other considerations, in the president’s mind,
were secondary. But the Joint Chiefs were lukewarm at best about the Surge, a
mindset bolstered by the elevation of General George Casey, the former
commander of MNF-I, to be the Army chief of staff in February 2007. Casey
didn’t believe the Surge was the right strategy for Iraq, and his presence on
the Joint Chiefs dampened what little enthusiasm they had for the new way
forward.

Admiral Fallon likewise did not believe the Surge was the
right strategy for Iraq. Like Casey, Fallon believed that U.S. forces should
slowly withdraw from the conflict and allow the Iraqis to fight it out among
themselves. He put sand in the gears of the process of providing reinforcements
to Iraq to slow it down, much to the consternation of General Petraeus.

13. One of the main
goals of the United States from 2007-2008 was to reduce violence so that Iraq’s
elite could focus upon politics. Do you think that was achieved by the end of
the Surge, and if so what were some examples you saw?

The Surge accomplished its goal of enabling the competition
for power and resources in Iraq to move back into the realm of politics, at
least the kind of politics that doesn’t use bombs and bullets to make its
point. In the winter of 2008 the Iraqi Council of Representatives passed a
number of laws, such as amnesty legislation, de-Ba’athification reform, and an
annual budget, that showed that Iraqi legislators could make deals with one
another. After the Charge of the Knights operation in Basra and the clearing of
Sadr City in the spring of 2008, all but one of the political parties in Iraq
gave a vote of support to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The provincial
elections of 2009 brought a large majority of Iraqis of all sects and political
persuasions to the polls and brought the Sunnis back into the political
process. The wheels started to come off the bus after the presidential election
of 2010, when the United States backed Maliki’s candidacy for another term as
prime minister instead of supporting the winner of the elections, Ayad Allawi.
After that election the Sunnis lost faith in the political process and the
jihadists were once again able to make inroads among them. The current violence
in Iraq dates to that ill-considered decision, not to the outcome of the Surge,
which ended in July 2008.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki just
turned a military tragedy, which rallied much of the country behind the
government, into a campaign against the Anbar protest movement. In the middle
of December 2013 Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) set up an elaborate trap, which
resulted in the death of much of the leadership of the Army’s 7th
Division. Baghdad then launched a massive military campaign in Anbar that
almost all parties and much of the public supported. In the midst of this
offensive however, the prime minister decided to go after the Anbar
demonstrators by claiming that they were behind the terrorists, and then ordered
the detention of Parliamentarian Ahmed Alwani of the Iraqi Islamic Party who
was one of their leaders. The lawmaker was captured, but not before a shoot out
that resulted in several deaths and brought out hundreds of people into the
streets in Anbar in support of him. Now the government is demanding that the
protest sites close. In doing so, Maliki turned a national moment into a
personal vendetta against his opponents.

In the middle of December 2013 Al
Qaeda set a trap for the army, which turned into a rallying point for much of
Iraq. On December 16, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) started a new operation in
Anbar. On December 21, the Army’s 7th Division received news
that an AQI camp had been discovered in Adham along the Ninewa border. The
leadership of the division went to investigate the site believing that it was
abandoned, but in fact it was a trap set by the Islamists with booby traps and
suicide bombers. The result was that the 7th Division Commander
General Mohammed Karawi, his assistant General Mohammed Nauman, and the
heads of the 27th and 29th Brigades were all killed. In
response, Baghdad immediately ordered a massive campaign against AQI. Most of
the political class came out in support of the government, and there were rallies in major cities backing the security forces as well. Several tribes in
Anbar also rallied behind the ISF and said they were going to help with the new
security crackdown. Sheikh Mohammed al-Hayes for example called on all the
sheikhs in Anbar to fight AQI during a meeting in Ramadi, and said that the
soldiers dying against the terrorists were mostly native Anbaris. Amidst
all of the divisions and sectarian tensions this was a rare moment in Iraq. In
recent history there have been few times where Iraqis have rallied behind the
flag. The deaths of the officers provided one of those events where both the
elite and common people came out to express their support for the security
forces and the fight against Al Qaeda.

Rallies in Babel and Karbala in
support of the security crackdown in Anbar (Al-Mada)

In the midst of this nationalist
sentiment Maliki decided to destroy the mood and follow his own political
agenda. First, the prime minister gave a television interview where he claimed
that the Anbar protest sites were harboring Al Qaeda leaders. After talks
with local and national politicians the premier seemed to back down, but
he didn’t. On December 27 he said that day’s Friday’s prayers were the last for
the sit-in sites since they were areas of sedition and threatened to burn down
their tents. The next day he ordered the arrest of parliamentarian Ahmed
Alwani from the Iraqi Islamic Party who was one of the leaders of the activists.
He had an outstanding warrant out for him since September for his sectarian verbal
attacks upon Shiites during the rallies. In one speech for instance he
said that the followers of Iran were in the country, meaning Shiites, and that
they should be beheaded without mercy. The raid on his house led to an hour-long gunfight that ended up killing Alwani’s brother and five of his guards. Politicians
from all different parties condemned the move saying that it only inflamed
tensions. In Anbar, there were immediate protests in Fallujah and Ramadi in support of Alwani, his clan the Albu Alwan gave the government 12 hours to release him or face the consequences, the demonstrators’ Pride and Dignity
Army was deployed to the demonstration sites, and they promised to fight
anyone that used force against them. At the same time the ISF put armored
vehicles around the protest areas, and the security forces stopped an investigative committee from parliament who wanted to look into Alwani’s arrest
from entering the province. Acting Defense Minister Sadoun Dulaimi went on to say
that Alwani would be released if the protests were ended, turning the
lawmaker into a virtual hostage. Once again, local officials such as Anbar Governor Ahmed Diab, the provincial council, and sheikhs tried to
mediate between the central government and Anbaris. Beforehand Maliki was in
talks with Anbar politicians and sheikhs to negotiate an end to the
demonstrations. Then when the 7th Division officers were killed
he went back to making threats and demands against the sit-ins. This has been
the prime minister’s long time modus operandi to offer concessions on the one
hand, and then use the stick to intimidate people. The premier could not have
picked a worse time however to go after his opponents, because it destroyed the
nationalist feelings that were spreading throughout the country.

MP Alwani giving a speech at the
Ramadi protest site (Al-Mada)

Rallies in support of Alwani in
Anbar, and armed checkpoints set up in Ramadi

March in Ramadi Dec. 28, 2013 (AFP)

Rally in Fallujah Dec. 28, 2013 (Mohammed Jalil)

Fallujah (Mohammed Jalil)

Fallujah (Mohammed Jalil)

People gathering before a march in Ramadi near Alwani's home as gunmen watch guard Dec. 29, 2013 (AFP)

(AFP)

(AFP)

(AFP)

Armed checkpoint in Ramadi Dec. 29, 2013 (Mohammed Jalil)

(Mohammed Jalil)

(Mohammed Jalil)

In one swift move Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki wrecked the chance to unify much of Iraq against Al Qaeda, so
that he could take on the Anbar protest movement. The death of the army
generals from the 7th Division was a perfect opportunity to reverse
the worsening security situation by getting the public behind the government.
With popular backing there would have been more intelligence coming in, and
less passive support for the insurgency. Instead, Maliki instantly turned to
the sit-ins, and restarted his feud with them, which he had just resolved a few
days before, and was in the process of negotiating an end to. The prime
minister could not pass up the chance to use the military campaign in Anbar to
go after the demonstrators as well. By doing so he re-ignited tensions in the
province, and probably gave the activists renewed life, just when it looked
like they were losing steam with the loss of their political and tribal allies.
Now there’s talk of war in the governorate, and that can only end badly for all
involved. Any use of force by the ISF would only turn more people towards
militancy, because it would just be the latest example of Baghdad not caring
about them and the failure of national politics to solve anything. There could
not be a better example of the premier’s short-term thinking. He like the rest
of the elite only thinks about his own political future, and the country
constantly suffers as a result. Violence is already increasing in Anbar as Al
Qaeda is trying to re-establish itself there. Now things are on the verge of
getting much worse if Maliki forces the matter with the demonstrators. Even if
he walks away from the edge it would still be bad, because the attempt to
negotiate an end to the protests will be over as well. The prime minister’s
inability to think big picture has thus undermined his own work, and now things
are much worse in Anbar when they were already heading in the wrong direction.

UPDATE

Anbar officials claim they worked
out a deal with Defense Minister Dulaimi to take
down the Ramadi protest site, which was done by local police today,
December 30. This was said to be done peacefully, but fighting broke out in
Ramadi and Fallujah with 10 dead, 7 gunmen and 3 police, and 43 wounded, 29
gunmen and 14 soldiers, and a mosque in Ramadi was head calling people to
jihad against the government forces. Politically the Iraqi National
Movement is threatening a boycott
of government in protest.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

After several attempts at reconciliation between Anbar’s
provincial government and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to end the on-going
protests there events turned for the worse in December 2013. The premier
claimed that the demonstration sites were a base for Al Qaeda and demanded that
they be ended, and hinted at a crackdown. Just before that Sheikh Hamid
al-Hayes accused the death of his nephew upon the Ramadi protests as well, and
threatened to use violence unless the perpetrators were turned over to him. It
seemed like either the government or Hayes’ tribe was about to storm the Ramadi
protest camp, but then things suddenly calmed down. Stepping back from the brink
was best for all concerned, but it was another sign of the decline of the
protest movement.

In the middle of December Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
attacked the Anbar protest sites as a terrorist haven and threatened to close
them down as a result. Maliki said that the situation in Anbar was allowing insurgents to operate there. He claimed that had allowed the province to become a base
for Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), that 30 of its leaders were hiding amongst the protesters, and called for those that did not support the Islamists to exit
the demonstration sites immediately. Anbar Governor Ahmed Diab backed the
premier and had the security forces surround the Ramadi protest area. It
seemed like some sort of crackdown was imminent as one of the protest
organizers Sheikh Mohammed al-Fayadh told the National Iraqi News Agency. This
was a change in tone for the prime minister who had recently been in talks with
Governor Diab, the governorate council, and sheikhs such as Ahmed Abu Risha to
offer some concessions that might end the demonstrations. The death of much of the leadership of the 7th Division on December 21 by AQI in
Anbar’s Horan Valley likely led to Maliki’s reversal on the protesters.
Baghdad launched a major security operation in the governorate in response, and
the premier probably thought he could force an end to the demonstrations at the
same time.

Fortunately there was a step back from the brink. Speaker of
Parliament Osama Nujafi tried to mediate by making a series of calls to
political leaders in the country. He eventually secured a guarantee from
the prime minister not to storm the protest sites. Governor Diab also
ordered the security forces to withdraw from the Ramadi camp as well. If
Maliki had followed through with his threat to clear out the protesters there
was a good chance that it would have led to a bloodbath like what happened in
April in Hawija when dozens of people were killed and wounded by the security
forces during a raid on the demonstrators there. Afterward there was an
explosion of violence across western, northern and central Iraq by insurgent
groups and tribes, which has not subsided since then. That should have taught
Baghdad that force was not the way to deal with the protests. All of the rhetoric
by Maliki might have been brinkmanship anyway to scare people to leave the
sites rather than an actual threat.

At almost the exact same time there was another crisis
dealing with Sheikh Hamid al-Hayes. At the beginning of December the sheikh’s nephew
was gunned down in Ramadi, and Hayes said his murderers fled into the protest camp there to escape. He gave the organizers 48 hours to turn over the
suspects or he would use force to close them down. Hayes was an early supporter
of the demonstrators, but has since turned against them. At the beginning of
the month for example, he claimed that Al Qaeda was taking over the movement. The provincial council stepped in and got Hayes to back down a bit. The major reason why protests in Anbar and other provinces have been able to
sustain themselves for so long compared to previous ones is that it had support
of three powerful groups. Those were political parties such as Speaker Nujafi’s
Mutahidun and the Islamic Party, tribes likes Hayes and Abu Risha’s, and the
clerical establishment. In recent months however, the activists have lost
the backing of Mutahidun and many of the sheikhs as well. That was shown by
Hayes’ tirade against the Ramadi site. This too might have played a role in
Maliki’s threat against Anbar as well, because he could see that organizers did
not have the strength that they had before, and might have even found a local
ally in Hayes to shut down the protests.

These two events are further signs of the problems the Anbar
activists are running into. They started in December 2012 after Maliki issued
arrest warrants for some of then Finance Minister Rafi Issawi’s bodyguards who
hails from Fallujah. They quickly spread to other provinces such as Ninewa,
Diyala, Salahaddin, Baghdad, and Tamim. Since the 2013 provincial elections
more and more of their supporters have abandoned them. Mutahidun has been
scared by the resurgence of Al Qaeda in the governorate and would like to get
on to ruling Anbar after its victory in this year’s vote, and that has led it to
open talks with Maliki. Hayes and Abu Risha have joined it, and come out in
support of Baghdad as well. They have all had a series of meetings with the
prime minister, and gained a number of concessions over security and
development. This led some organizers to threaten militancy by reviving the
idea of forming a Pride and Dignity Army that would supposedly protect Sunnis
from the government. Governor Diab responded by calling on the protesters
to suspend their activities until after the 2014 national balloting for
parliament, and condemned them forming any armed group. He was then criticized
by the Islamic Party, activists, and some sheikhs. Without the
support of notables in Anbar the demonstrations would not be able to maintain
themselves. It is due to this backing that they have been able to build large
tent cities and feed the thousands of people who have attended for the last
twelve months. Now the pressure is beginning to mount on them not only from
Baghdad, which has always been there, but from groups within Anbar itself,
which could eventually mean the end of the demonstrations.

The Anbar protests were at the brink with threats coming
from not only the central government but a local sheikh as well, but that was
luckily averted. Now the question is what will come of the movement. They are
slowly losing their allies with local voices now calling for their end. That
doesn’t mean the protesters will go home any time soon, but the signs are
growing that they have lost their luster. Mutahidun wants to focus upon
security and governing. Anbar’s sheikhs have been divided since the end of the
Awakening, and those rivalries are coming out again. That is the bigger picture
that has emerged from the recent events, and bodes ill for the future of the
demonstrations.

In the middle of December 2013 thousands of Shiites from around the world celebrated Arbaeen by making a pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala where the Shrine of Imam Abbas resides. These pictures are from Agence France Presse's Mohammed Sawaf showing pilgrims in Karbala on Dec. 22 and 23, 2013.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Dr. Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near
East Studies recently testified to a joint committee of the United States House
of Representatives that Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) couldn’t help but overstep
itself. During the early part of the Iraq War the Islamist organization
tried to impose its foreign version of Islam upon Iraq, and intimidated and
executed those that disagreed with it. It was actions such as those that
eventually turned many Iraqis against it. Today, AQI is making a comeback
establishing bases again within the country and carrying out a dizzying array
of bombings. As the group looks to gain territory it is returning to
its bad habits, which will eventually cost it sometime down the road.

As part of its Soldier’s Harvest campaign Al Qaeda is seeking to take and hold areas of Iraq. It has already established
itself in regions of Anbar, Diyala, Salahaddin, and Babil provinces. There the
group is not only setting up bases and training camps, but also once again
trying to dictate its version of Islam upon the populace. Al-Shorfa recently
interviewed several people from the village of Jura south of Samarra in
Salahaddin governorate, which was temporarily under AQI control. During
that period Al Qaeda began passing out flyers setting out rules on how it
wanted people to act and behave. Those included not working for or cooperating
with the security forces, all women had to wear the hijab, men could not wear
western style clothes such as trousers, shirts, and neckties, parents should
not buy PlayStations for their children, and schools had to separate boys and
girls. A store that sold western clothing was bombed, and some residents were
publicly whipped for breaking these strictures. These are the exact same
tactics that Al Qaeda followed before that turned much of the population
against them. In Anbar for example, many sheikhs complained about how the
Islamists would kill anyone that disagreed with them. It murdered sheikhs,
beheaded some and booby-trapped others with explosives. It dragged women and
children out into the streets to discipline them and scared people into follow
their orders. The Islamists went from allies of the Iraqis to their enemies.
After a few years of this type of rule many locals turned against the
organization. The same thing is likely to happen again as AQI moves into towns
like Jura and attempts to impose its will over it.

Al Qaeda may be a successful terrorist organization, but it
will never be a popular movement. Its form of Islam is too strict and foreign
for Iraqis to ever accept. Its threats against men for wearing t-shirts and
blowing up a store that sold them is just one example of how the group will
over overstep its welcome. AQI is only just now attempting to gain territory in
Iraq, and therefore has only been able to hand out its flyers in a few places.
If it is able to spread its influence it will eventually anger the locals. It
will then be up to the government to take advantage of the situation by
reaching out to the people and offering them protection and safety from the
extremists. Given Iraq’s intense divisions and the short-term thinking of its
leaders it’s not clear that Baghdad is able to think in those terms. As Dr.
Knights pointed out in that same Congressional hearing the security forces have
purposely abandoned counterinsurgency tactics, because the central government
did not want to work with the populace. If the security situation worsens it
may be forced to otherwise the country will only descend further into violence,
and it will be just as much the authorities fault as the insurgents.

SOURCES

Knights, Dr. Michael, testimony on “The Resurgence of
al-Qaeda in Iraq” to Joint Subcommittee Hearing, Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation, and Trade, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa,
12/12/13

Professor Nadje Al-Ali is a professor of gender studies at
SOAS, University of London. She has authored several books and articles on the
history and present state of Iraqi women including Iraqi Women: Untold Stories From 1948 to the Presentand What Kind of Liberation?: Women and the Occupation of Iraq, and was one of the editors of We Are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics in a Time of War. The Iraq
War has given rise to a number of contradictory stories about women in Iraq.
One is that Iraqi women were liberated and on the rise under Saddam, and then
all that was reversed after the 2003 invasion as religious parties gained
control and attempted to impose their views upon society. An opposing view was
that Iraq was a typical Arab Muslim country where women had a secondary role,
but then the Americans freed them from these restrictions. To try to provide a
clearer picture of what women have gone through both before and after the fall
of Saddam Hussein is an interview with Prof. Al-Ali.

1. The Baath took
power in Iraq in the 1968 coup. It had a modernizing vision for Iraq, which
Saddam Hussein partially implemented when he assumed control of the country.
Part of that was opening up opportunities for women. That accelerated during
the 1980s when many men were drawn into the military for the Iran-Iraq War.
What exactly was the Baathist vision for women and what kind of policies did
Saddam carry out during the 1970s and 1980s?

Iraqi women at university in Iraq in the 1970s

The Baath regime came to power in 1968, and Saddam Hussein
actually became president in 1979, so there was a decade when he was vice
president. The Baath Party’s ideology initially was very secular, Arab
socialist, and nationalist, and I think very similar to other post-colonial
secular leaders in the region like Ataturk and also the Shah of Iran. In the
1950s and 60s and 70s in many countries in the region there was a push to
modernize and an understanding that this process meant pushing women into
education and the labor force. This process was sped up in the Iraqi context
because of the economic conditions. In the early 70s there was an oil crisis,
and then afterward oil prices shot up and so all the oil producing countries
had their economies boom. While some of the other countries like Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait dealt with this boom and expanding economy by trying to bring in
foreign laborers the Iraqi government tried to mobilize its own human
resources, 50% of which was women. In the 70s there was a very strong push for
women’s education. Lots of schools were built, lots of universities were built,
lots of scholarships were made available to women, also to study abroad to get
M.A.’s and PhD’s. There were systems in place that allowed women to have
families and children and work. For example childcare was free, and
transportation to work and school was free. Those were the kinds of systems put
in place that allowed women to have active working lives. And when I say women
I mean mainly the urban women, although in the countryside there were also
literacy campaigns. There was also something called the General Federation of
Iraqi Women that was like the female branch of the Baath Party, and it was
responsible for implementing some of the state’s modernizing policies. For
instance, it had a big campaign to raise awareness about health and hygiene,
how to feed children, and it also had a very successful literacy campaign. At
the end of the 70s Iraq actually received a prize from UNESCO for being the
country that managed to raise its female literacy the quickest.

Saddam posing with Iraqi school girls in the 1970s

You can speak about the ideology of the Baath, which was
secular and socialist in outlook with a centralized state and wanting to
modernize. In other ways it was just being pragmatic. It was responding to the
situation on the ground and decided that it had human resources and it should
take advantage of them. Lots of Iraqi women, even those who were in opposition
to the regime and who might have suffered under the regime, who I have talked
to think with nostalgia about the 70s when there was an expanding economy,
social-economic rights, and the state was quite generous. In my mind, it is not
true that Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party lasted so long just because they
brutally repressed the population. I think they also bought off the expanding
middle class. In terms of social-economic rights, in terms of access to
education, health care, having a house, a freezer, a car, people could do quite
well if they didn’t open up their mouths. This was all in the 1970s

Than in the 1980s there was the Iran-Iraq War. During that
period things changed drastically. Lots of the state funding, instead of
channeling it into education, health care, and child care, it got channeled
into the military, and that’s when things started to shift. But because it was
such a long war where thousands and thousands of men fought and died that also
meant that over a long period of time women started taking over many of the
roles that men initially played not only in terms of different jobs in the
labor force, but also in the state bureaucracy and administration. So women
became very visible in the 80s.

There was also a shift in state ideology. It wasn’t about
the good Iraqi woman being the educated, working woman like in the 70s, but in
the 80s the good Iraqi woman became the mother of future soldiers. At some
point, Saddam Hussein said that every good Iraqi woman should have five
children. The government made abortion illegal, contraception illegal, and it
gave very generous subsidies to baby foods, and things like that.

2. In 1989 the
Iran-Iraq War ended and there was a demobilization of the military, and then
shortly afterwards Iraq invaded Kuwait and faced international sanctions. How
did those changes affect the status of women?

What really had a devastating affect upon Iraqi women was
not the Gulf War in 1991, but the 13 years of economic sanctions. To my mind I
feel that part of history should not be forgotten. You can’t actually
understand contemporary Iraq without understanding the impact that the sanctions
had on society. Lots has been written and talked about the humanitarian crisis
that occurred during that period in terms of health care and education. When it
came to women it really triggered a shift to greater social conservatism. That
had different causes. One was that when people are fighting and struggling over
resources and over jobs there is often a call for women to go back home and
look after the children. That happened in Iraq where in some parts you had up
to 70% unemployment. The state couldn’t afford all these generous welfare
policies anymore or pay salaries. A large percentage of Iraqi women who had
been in the public sector were suddenly told the state couldn’t afford them to
work anymore, because they couldn’t pay for child care, transportation, and
salaries. The other thing was that by the 1990s there was a huge demographic
imbalance between men and women because more men had been killed in the
Iran-Iraq War and Saddam’s political persecution had driven more men to flee
the country. By the 90s there was 55-60% women, with many female-headed
households and many widows. Before there was an extended family network that
would support people, but by the 90s each nuclear family was just busy
surviving.

One of the things that happened was that there was an
increase in prostitution. That was also partly pushed by the regime and a class
of nouveau rich and war profiteers who made lots of money from smuggling. The
big impact wasn’t that suddenly there was so much more prostitution, but that there
was an awareness that there was more prostitution. Eventually the regime
crackdown on prostitution, because although it was initially behind creating
the market for it the regime got very embarrassed when the Jordanian government
complained about the number of Iraqi women who came to Jordan to work as
prostitutes. Afterwards it was a matter of protecting the honor of the nation,
so Saddam’s son Uday brutally cracked down on a number of prostitutes and pimps
and publicly beheaded them. In the aftermath there was a panic and lots of
families became very protective of their daughters, sisters, and wives. Lots of
Iraqi women told me that in previous decades, female students had been able to
go after school or university for coffee or ice cream with their friends, but
during the 90s, they weren’t able to do that anymore. They had to dress much
more conservatively. Mobility became more difficult. The dress code became much
more constrained. Even more seriously polygamy increased during the sanctions
period. As families were struggling to survive some families agreed to have
their daughters get married to older men who had more money as a kind of
survival strategy.

This shift towards greater social conservatism in the 90s is
an important background in order to understand what happened after 2003. Also,
lots of people had left by 2003 including many secular, educated, and middle
class people, and this has had an impact on what’s going on today.

3. After the 2003
invasion the Coalition Provisional Authority said that it attempted to make
some changes to the country that would empower women as part of transforming
the society. They set up a quota system for example that reserved 25% of the
seats in parliament for women. Do you think the Americans were able to make any
progress for women?

First we need to challenge the idea that the United States
installed the quota system. The quota system was enshrined in the constitution
and previously in the Transitional Administrative Law despite objections from
the CPA, particularly Paul Bremer. In the spring of 2004 a delegation of Iraqi
women’s rights activists went to see Paul Bremer, and asked for 40%
representation in the parliament saying that women actually make up the
majority of the Iraqi population. They told him that Iraqi women had played an
important role in keeping the country together during the dictatorship and the
Iran-Iraq War, and now women wanted a piece of the new Iraq. Bremer looked at
them and said “We don’t do quotas.” It was only due to intense lobbying on
behalf of Iraqi women’s rights activists and transnational women’s solidarity
by international organizations and media coverage of this lobbying that the
Transitional Administrative Law and later the constitution included a
compromise 25% of seats quota for women in parliament. This was due to pressure
from Iraqis and international groups, not because the Americans put it
together.

Secondly, I personally think that a quota can be a positive
thing, but not in and of itself. If a quota is the only thing there is then it
is not doing that much to represent women. What has happened in Iraq is that
the 25% of parliament who are women are to a large extent the wives, sisters,
and daughters of male politicians. They are also often very conservative male politicians.
One should say that it has allowed some outspoken women into the parliament,
but that is just a small number. It’s also complicated because over a period of
time women who initially looked towards how the men were voting before they put
up their own hand started to develop their own views and voices and sometimes
work across religious and ethnic lines with other women on some issues that are
less controversial like access to health care for example or education.

On the other hand without the quota there probably would be
hardly any women in the parliament. If you have conservative Islamist members
of parliament you might as well have some of them be women. But that doesn’t
mean they protect women’s rights, and we need to be clear about that.

Another thing to be said about the quota is that it is not
applied consistently. It is applied in parliament, but not in the ministries or
within any of the important committees that decide things, so it is quite
inconsistently applied. A quota only really works if it is linked to other
measures and policies, so if it is just a quota and everything else is gender
blind then it is really only cosmetic.

4. There are many
religious parties that run the country such as the Dawa, the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq, the Sadrists, the Iraqi Islamic Party, etc. What kind of
impact have those parties had?

I think we need to distinguish between an Islamic view,
which many Iraqis were ready for because after all they had experienced a
brutal dictatorship for several decades, which was secular. So as a reaction to
that many people thought that a more Islamic government would be the solution.
I think that the Islamist parties that have come to power post-2003 are not
just Islamists but sectarian. I hold the politicians who lived outside of Iraq
for a long time and were in the opposition partly responsible for the increase
in sectarianism. I don’t think it’s right to say that sectarianism didn’t exist
before 2003, and certainly Saddam Hussein played on sectarianism and he did
stir up sectarian sentiments, but these new political parties helped by the
CPA, which based the Iraqi Governing Council on ethnic and sectarian divisions,
and then the first elections institutionalized sectarian politics. So it’s not
only Islamism, which is already problematic, but its Islamist-sectarianism
imposed from above. I think right now on one hand many people are really fed up
with the Islamist-sectarian politicians, and on the other hand I think
sectarianism is really deep and engrained, much more so than it was during the
height of sectarian tensions in 2007.

Speaking more specifically about women clearly they are
getting it from both sides. On the one hand they have now been exposed to a
government that’s largely been based upon Islamist politics, which is either
ignoring issues related to women or the laws around like the Personal Status
Code, which is a set of laws that governs divorce, marriage, and inheritance.
There is a strong push to create one that is a more conservative interpretation
of Sharia law as opposed to the one before that has been in place since 1959.
That one was alsobased upon Sharia law,
but it was a progressive reading. I think women are now being used by the
Islamist government to show that they are different from the previous regime,
which was secular. At the same time, women are being used by insurgents and
various militia groups to show resistance to western imperialism. So women are
being crushed by both sides by these conservative Islamist forces.

Children heading to school in Baghdad (NY Times)

5. You talked about
how woman had a lot more opportunities in the 1970s and 80s, and how that
changed during the sanctions period. How about today because most U.N. reports
that talk about women in terms of schooling and work force participation show
very low numbers?

One big issue is security. Sending your children to school
in general is scary for many parents. For girls, parents worry even more,
especially in neighborhoods that are not safe. There are threats in terms of
kidnapping, forced prostitution, and trafficking. Lots of young women are being
trafficked out of Iraq. Those kinds of risks and threats and lack of security
negatively impact young women’s education as well as labor force participation,
because parents worry about sending their daughters out. Women do work, but
there is a lot of unemployment in Iraq generally so there is competition for
jobs. I have a lot of contacts in universities, and women work there, but their
opportunities are very limited.

6. Looking into the
future Iraq is a country that has a lot of potential. Do you see opportunities
for women opening up for them in the coming years?

Defintely. Iraqi women have been extremely resourceful,
creative and courageous over these past decades, and they will continue to be
so in the future. There is a very active women’s movement across central and
southern Iraq as well as in Iraqi Kurdistan. Women are not only lobbing for
more equality and women’s rights, but they are also at the forefront of the
opposition against authoritarianism, sectarianism, and corruption. I have been
very impressed by some young women who are determined to educate themselves and
make a difference in Iraq. However, I think that short-term, or even the next
decade, will be extremely tough for women as they are squeezed between
Islamists, corrupt politicians, a police and judiciary that is not very
sympathetic to women’s plights, such as various forms of gender-based violence,
mafia-type gangs and militia, as well as a revival of conservative tribal
leaders and practices.

IRAQ HISTORY TIMELINE

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com